Mullaperiyar panel gets two-month extension (Lead)

New Delhi, Feb 27 (IANS) The Supreme Court Monday gave two more months to an expert committee headed by former chief justice of India A.S. Anand to submit its report on the safety of the Mullaperiyar dam in Kerala.

A five-judge bench of Justice D.K. Jain, Justice R.M.Lodha, Justice Deepak Verma, Justice Chandramauli Kumar Prasad and Justice Anil R. Dave accepted the request of the committee for two more months’ time to submit its final report on the core sample of the dam structure.

The committee was to file its final report on the safety of the dam by Feb 29. However, it decided to seek time till April 30 as it had not received the report from the Pune based Central Water and Power Research Station on the drilling work conducted by it.

The Central Water and Power Research Station had sought one and half months’ time to analyse the data of the four drillings it conducted at Mullaperiyar.

While granting the extension, the court expressed its displeasure over the non-cooperation of the Tamil Nadu and Kerala governments with the expert committee.

The state governments are at loggerheads over Kerala’s decision to dismantle the dam, holding that its structure was not safe. The Tamil Nadu government manages the more than 100-year-old dam.

The export committee headed by Justice Anand includes the apex court’s retired Justice K.T. Thomas and Justice A.R. Lakshmanan representing Kerala and Tamil Nadu respectively. The other members of the committee are former water resources secretary C.D. Thatte and retired Central Water Commission chief engineer D.K. Mehta.